Charter Commission

Issue summary

The Charter defines the architecture for our city Government. It specifies how many people should serve as Alderman and School Committee members, what their powers and duties are, and for how long, with or without term limits. It specifies the role of the mayor, or city manager. The commision's changes will be presented to the citizens in November 2017 for a yes or no vote. Alternatively, the charter can be adopted by majority vote of the BOA and approval by the Mayor, then it must then pass both houses of state legislature. The following people were elected to the commission: Brooke K. Lipsitt, Rhanna Kidwell, Anne M. Larner, Joshua Krintzman, Bryan P. Barash, Howard M. Haywood, Christopher Steele, Jane O'Connor Frantz, Karen Manning. The Charter Commision Process

The commision could decide to abolish Area Councils, could impose term limits on Alderman and could reduce their numbers from 24 to 8, or 3, anything is possible. The League of Women Voters of Newton has spent years collecting the required signatures to place the initiative on the ballot and has taken positions on how it should be revised. Click here to view more. This posting is in not an endorsement of their postions. The current Charter is in the document archive on the right.